The Althesian Enrichment Center
by UnderRoyality
Summary: A prisoner is guided through a series of test chambers by an artificial intelligence


**Hello fandom, today I bring you this mini-story I did recently, and I wanted to do something more different. An interaction of little-seen characters, and you know who they are. You read it for yourself.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY, RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and its late father, Monty Oum(RIP for this man).**

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**The Atlesian Enrichment Center**

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You awaken to metal, glass, and the sound of a radio. Drowsily sitting up, you find yourself in a tiny room containing a toilet, a coffee mug, a radio playing remarkably upbeat music, and the bed you've apparently been sleeping in. Three of the room's four walls are glass, looking into a larger room that seems oddly empty. You don't know where you are, you don't know how you got here, and you don't even recognize the gaudy orange clothes you're currently wearing. Well, at least one of those things can be fixed. You activate your semblance, and your outfit changes back to the pink and brown costume you've become so accustomed to. Sadly, your umbrella isn't in the room with you; you start pondering whether it'd be worth the trouble to try to find it rather than simply crafting a new one once you escape from whatever this place is.

Your thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a disembodied voice.

"Salutations, test subject Neopolitan, and welcome to the Atlesian Enrichment Center!" it announces, in decidedly cheerful tones. "I hope your detention inside the relaxation vault has been absolutely wonderful! My name is Penny, and I will be guiding you through the test chambers today. Now, are you ready to begin?"

This voice is obviously synthetic, so you see no reason not to ignore it. You jump once, landing solidly back on the floor. It doesn't seem particularly thin; that won't be your way out of here.

"Was that meant to be an answer?" Penny asks, notes of confusion in her voice. "Nobody's ever answered one of my questions by jumping before, so I don't know how to interpret that. If you are willing to participate today, could you please say 'yes', or 'I am ready to begin testing' or some other similarly affirmative statement? Mr. Ironwood says I'm not allowed to begin the test until you agree to it."

Still ignoring Penny, you jump again, this time doing a backflip to land a kick on the ceiling, which you find to be considerably more thin. Yes, that's definitely your way out of here.

"You're still jumping," Penny observes, now sounding slightly irritated. "Okay, why don't you jump once if you're willing to participate in the test, and twice if not."

You jump and kick the ceiling again, this time breaking through. As you land, you glance up to see the new cavity in the ceiling, that seems to lead to a narrow crawl-space.

"Spectacular!" Penny exclaims. "I'm so excited to be testing with you today. We're going to have a wonderful time, and we're going to get to make valuable advancements to science while doing it! Now, go right ahead and proceed through the portal to the chamber lock."

An orange disk appears in the room's one solid wall, and through it you can see…yourself, oddly enough. You can see the small room you're in from the perspective of the larger room outside. You glance out to the place where you'd be standing if you had that view, and you see a blue disk on that wall.

Finally, something interesting. You're no stranger to the concept of teleportation, and your experiences using your powers of illusion have led you to be used to viewing locations from multiple perspectives simultaneously. But this seems to be a genuine portal.

That crawl space you exposed would almost certainly make for a successful escape route, but you suppose you don't have an urgent need to escape, so you might as well stick around to check this out. You step through the portal and appear in the larger room.

"Well done, test subject Neopolitan!" Penny declares. "Is that what I should call you, by the way? Your file says that you also go by Neo. Would you prefer it if I called you that?"

You don't particularly care what name a computer uses to refer to you, but Penny seems to want answers to your question, so you give her a quick nod.

"All right then, Neo!" Penny says cheerfully, and you're fairly certain that this is what it would sound like if a computer were able to smile. "Now you've got one more test to complete before you proceed to the chamber lock."

The test in question takes place in a room containing only a large red button and a cube; the doors out seem to only open when you're standing on the button. This is trivial. You pick up the cube, step on the button to open the doors, and kick the cube so that it lands between the doors. Once you step off the button, the doors are unable to close, so you step over the cube into what appears to be an elevator.

"Now that's a fantastic solution!" Penny observes. "Most people just put the cube on the button to hold it down. But you came up with something new and different! I think we're going to get along fabulously."

You certainly don't agree; you have no interest in forming personal bonds with someone who isn't real. But you're not particularly annoyed by this synthetic voice, so you let it keep talking as you continue through the next several test chambers, most of which involve various portals that appear and disappear. You find this to be moderately entertaining, but some of the puzzles are easy for you to complete using only your semblance, to Penny's apparent delight.

And as you enter one test chamber, Penny seems to barely be able to contain her excitement. "I have a gift for you!" she announces as you enter. "For the following tests Mr. Ironwood asked me to provide you with an Atlesian Handheld Portal Device. And since I've seen an archived video of you in action, I know exactly how to deliver it!"

In the center of the room, you see your umbrella. As it rotates, the tip shoots out blasts of light that create portals as they hit the walls of the room.

"All of your weapon's original features are still present," Penny explains, "and it's now equipped to use Atlas Academy's latest synthetic dust crystal, which is responsible for the portals you've been passing through. Do you like it?"

As you gingerly pick up your weapon, you feel genuinely touched—this person, despite obviously being an artificial intelligence, seems to actually feel, even more so than some of the humans you've met in your line of work. And she seems to actually want you to be happy.

Perhaps Atlas has finally achieved their goal of making a machine with a soul.

You blink and smile in affirmation into the camera on the wall, and you can almost hear the camera smiling back.

And you continue onward, through test chamber after test chamber. Penny continues talking to you as you progress, and this time you actually acknowledge her and answer her questions, although without using any actual words, of course. And you actually feel like you're making a friend. And not like Roman. With you and Roman, it was always his show, and you were the supporting player, the sidekick, the one who wasn't really invested in any of his plans and just liked the person making them. But Penny actually lets you be in the spotlight, you're acknowledged and appreciated, there isn't anything lingering and unrequited.

And so when Penny has something to tell you in the last test chamber, you're ready to listen.

"I really shouldn't be telling you this," Penny begins, in a voice much quieter and less canned than her usual, "but Mr. Ironwood, he-"

Penny interrupts herself with a hiccup, and you wait patiently for her to continue.

"He…wants me to kill you," Penny confesses. "He says you're a dangerous criminal and that you need to be terminated once the test is complete. But I…don't want to do that. I've been given orders to end this test chamber with an incinerator, and I can't disobey my orders. But what can work is if you manage to find a way to escape before the end of this test chamber."

You smile into the camera with a blink and a shrug. This isn't even remotely the most worrying situation you've been in.

"You're taking this extraordinarily well," Penny observes. "Is this because you already have an escape plan?"

You nod, leap into the air, and kick through the ceiling like you did in the room you awoke in. With a few shots from your umbrella, you're easily able to portal up into the ducts.

"And that is yet another fantastic solution!" Penny cheers. "Well, goodbye Neo!"

You laugh to yourself as you hear this; you're not headed for a way out.

And soon, with the help of a few portals and the occasional illusion, you find yourself in the control room, where a girl who appears about your age is literally wired into a computer system. You easily incapacitate everybody else in the room and reveal yourself to her with a curtsy.

"Aw, Neo," Penny says, and for the first time you get to see what her smile actually looks like. "You came back for me!"

You extend your hand and Penny happily takes it, without even a moment's hesitation to ponder Ironwood's desires.

And this is how you found each other.


End file.
